Patients at hospitals and other care centers regularly require controlled drug intake as a part of the patient's prescribed therapy. One form of controlled drug intake is accomplished by infusing fluidic drugs with a medical infusion pump.
Medical infusion pumps, in general, provide regulated drug delivery to a patient. These pumps are used to deliver a selected drug or other therapeutic agent to a patient at a predetermined rate that is programmed into the pump. A doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional typically programs each medical infusion pump in accordance with a prescribed dosage of a drug or therapeutic agent. Once the medical infusion pump is programmed, it will execute that program regardless of any human errors introduced during the programming of the pump or creation of the pump protocol. Introduction of additional redundancies in verifying the programming of pumps can reduce errors in drug delivery to a patient.
Furthermore, medical infusion pumps can include a variety of functionality related to fluidic drug delivery. For example, medical infusion pumps can alter rates of drug delivery, can deliver boluses (additional drugs beyond the prescribed amount), and can accept reprogramming in accordance with different therapies, drugs, or patients. However, certain aspects of this functionality may be intended for use by a doctor, while other functionality may be intended for use by a nurse, and still further functionality may be intended for use by a patient. However, all of these settings and systems are generally available to all users of the medical infusion pump